OCTOBER 10, 2025 | OPINION | By Lilly Asano
During Kappa Alpha Theta’s primary recruitment on Sept. 29 through Oct. 2, I perfected my elevator pitch. Explaining my decision to join Theta became as routine as rattling off my box number at the mailroom or explaining the Block Plan to an extended family member.
“I was looking for a consistent community on the Block Plan and a place to be known and loved.”
My short and simple answer essentially captures why most members of Theta went through recruitment: we wanted consistency in a constantly changing and evolving academic atmosphere. However, it doesn’t tell the full story. As a freshman, I entered recruitment homesick, anxious and desperate to broaden my circle. Theta was a chance to make Colorado College feel more like home.
For my entire first semester at CC, I was convinced I was the only one struggling to adjust to college. I wanted to be closer to home and with my high school friends, regretting the “hard decision” to move out of state and leave all familiarity behind me. I tried to hide behind perfectly curated Instagram posts of Block Breaks and our vibrant sunsets. I deleted Snapchat so I didn’t have to see what my friends from home were doing.
I was plagued with guilt: I was one of the only people from my high school friend group who’d moved out of state for school. Here I was at this incredible college, consumed by homesickness and FOMO. Discomfort felt like a betrayal of this opportunity and my initial excitement. College had to get easier, and I had to get tougher.
Following recruitment, my circle slowly grew. Two upperclassmen took me under their wing, and our former editor-in-chief, Michael Braithwaite, convinced me to start writing for The Catalyst. I became friends with a girl in my sorority, Tessa Frantz ‘27, and slowly started acclimating to my new life in Colorado. I confided in a few people that I was homesick, but I even kept it from my best friend at home.
While I loved CC and the Block Plan, I struggled to find a sense of belonging throughout my entire freshman year. I didn’t feel like college had “clicked” yet. From the outside, I was doing everything right. I had all As, was writing almost weekly for The Catalyst, had a leadership role in my sorority and became an Admission Ambassador for the school in the spring.
At the end of the year, I met my mom at the Colorado Springs airport and we started the 1,600-mile drive back to North Carolina. As Pikes Peak faded in the distance, I started to cry. I spent the entire 24-hour drive telling my mom about my new friends, our adventures and my favorite memories from the year. I couldn’t wait to come back, now feeling like I was leaving a part of myself in Colorado. I kept calling CC home.
Tessa, my now co-editor-in-chief and one of my closest friends, and I both realized last year that we’d struggled with our sense of belonging and finding a home at CC when we reminisced on our first year together. We’d both felt alone and like no one else was experiencing what we were. Our sophomore year will likely be one of the most fun and meaningful years of our lives, but still, we wish we’d confided in each other earlier.
Regardless of whether you’ve fallen head over heels for CC or not, students don’t seem to talk about how hard it is to adjust to college, specifically at CC. This year, I’ve heard it from countless freshmen: Adjusting to the Block Plan is much harder than they’d expected. Family Weekend was too early and interrupted the slow process of acclimating to college. New Student Orientation can be exhausting and unsettling.
On Sept. 23, Rutgers Health reported that 70% of first-year students experience symptoms of homesickness, while 30% of all college students experience homesickness at one point each year. A study conducted by the National Library of Medicine found that 94% of students experienced homesickness during the first 10 weeks of college.
So why, if a majority of college students experience homesickness, do we not talk about it?
At CC, I think students thrive under the assumption that everyone is too cool to care. Students tend to be committed students, avid adventurers and laid back, or at least want people to believe they are. There’s always a fourteener to be climbed, a Dance Workshop performance to be perfected or Block to be flawlessly executed in three and a half weeks. We don’t talk about what makes college challenging beyond the Block Plan. We often become so caught up in our own self-image, as curated by the school’s demographics, that we forget that college isn’t supposed to be easy.
So we post on social media about extravagant Block Breaks and almost surreal views. We “work hard, play hard,” and forget that Block Breaks were meant to be a time to rest. We get caught up in the location of our school and the opportunity in front of us, and decide that we shouldn’t struggle here. The Block Plan keeps days booked and students busy, often leaving us little time to reflect or process our emotions. It’s a direct result of our school’s unique structure and location that force us to isolate our emotions from our college experience.
I crash and burn over Block Breaks. My workload and exhaustion catch up to me, and I find myself feeling homesick in some of the most incredible places the U.S. has to offer. I’ve cried from homesickness in the San Isabel National Forest and texted my parents how much I miss them from a houseboat on Lake Powell in Utah. I’ve missed my dog and often imagine her camping with me, and I frequently return to campus mentally drained.
We have to start talking about the hard parts of college, especially as we constantly adjust to new people, classes and ideas. We aren’t immune to homesickness or feeling like we don’t belong just because of how incredible our college is. Instead, we should realize that the Block Plan and CC’s individuality can actually isolate us from our feelings.
So let’s talk about it. Tell your friends when you’re struggling and ask for help. Text your friends from home. FaceTime your family or your dog. Be okay with this feeling. We’ve all experienced it.